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An UrbanDaddy Publication

Sometimes, form just needs to chill out and let function do its thing.

Third-year design student David Suhami disagrees, judging from his latest masterpiece, the Animal Pocket Knife, which “combines the idea of a Swiss Army knife and a jungle safari in Africa. The prototype is made from stainless steel to represent the current technology, while the handles are made from fine tabebuia wood to symbolize the traditional craft.”

We’re just going to call bullshit on this whole thing and be on our way.

From time to time, we come across a bad ideaso bad that it verges on being dangerous. And since we’re committed to limiting your style liability at all costs, we felt it our duty to walk you through the matted, slimy and downright ridiculous claims being made by the Australian ravers-turned-footwear-experts at KUSA by Yashin™.

That’s not to say we don’t respect the artistic side of food and beverage—it’s all in the presentation, after all. But we’re of the opinion that coffee, more than any other menu item, should fall under the function-over-form umbrella.

Here’s the latest steampunk laptop from “Prestidigital Datamancery & Paraphernalia Technofetishism” expert Richard Nagy. The New York Timesdescribes steampunk as “a subculture that is the aesthetic expression of a time-traveling fantasy world, inspired by the extravagantly inventive age of dirigibles and steam locomotives, brass diving bells and jar-shaped protosubmarines.” We describe steampunk as Comic-Con’s magniloquent Great-Aunt Gretchen serving high tea with one hand while slaying the Dungeon Master with the other.

This particular piece features a full-wood chassis with a gold foil map, physically engraved and lacquered brass keys, semiprecious gems that act as LED indicator lights and an Asus/Intel processor that might just be able to transport you and your DeLorean back to a time when normal people gave a shit about any of the words in this paragraph.

You know what they say about guys with small hands: they buy Lamborghini smartphones. The phone part of the newly released Lamborghini TL700 is a bit of a yawner, with middle-of-the-road specs via Android and Qualcomm. The rest is a bit of a gagger, with gold casings and a back plate made from crocodile skin. To our comrades in Russia (where the phone will go on sale this summer): spend the $2,750 domesticating this golden crocodile instead of overcompensating for the one in your pants.

Sales are always dicey—especially when the site is a Euro clearinghouse like Yoox—but we’re still a little shocked when a jacket like this catches the eye of a buyer and ends up on a site. (We’re slightly less surprised that it is now on sale.)

Was there some sort of horrible tuxedo malfunction? Is it a normal jacket with the worst styling on earth? Is it a comment on formalwear anxiety? Was there a car crash? Even at a 65% discount, doesn’t $275 seem maybe a little high?

There is also the distinct possibility that Tilda Swinton will wear it to the Oscars. Stay tuned.

Male nail polish, for instance, is apparently now a thing—and we can say without reservation that it is the greatest threat facing our nation at this time. Somehow, the more we learn about it, the more terrifying it becomes...

It’s basically all the troubling elements of the Apple fanatic in one object, right down to the “One More Thing” backdrop, just in case you want to stage your own keynote speech for the iCar. It also comes with a pair of apples (one with a bit missing), for reasons we can’t begin to fathom—and even more troubling, it looks like it’s sold out.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the second greatest endorsement photo we have ever seen. (#1 is still here.)

It comes from the new campaign for Paco Rabanne’s Black XS, which enlisted Jonas Åkerlund and an unusually somber Iggy Pop. We don’t know much about the scent itself (the samples haven’t come in yet), but Iggy’s expression speaks for itself.

We see a lot of strange, ungodly things in the course of our blogging duties, and normally we’re content to let them go by without comment. But occasionally we’re confronted by a mixture of ambition and bad taste that’s so confounding, so utterly inexplicable, we have no choice but to inflict it upon the internet at large.

We have no explanation for what you see before you. In fact, there can be no explanation.

Is it a snuggie knockoff? A parody of inner-city style circa Criss Cross? Why is one of the cuffs a different color? Is it actually a dress? Is it for wizards? Is it related to the South Asian criminal tradition of thuggee? How are you supposed to walk?

Life’s too short to get angry. But from time to time, we see something befuddling, ridiculous or just plain wrong…and we feel compelled to offer a humble suggestion for improvement.

The picture above is the latest Converse collab, which unfortunately finds Givenchy in the middle of their leopard-print phase. It’s also quite possibly the least punk rock thing we’ve ever seen. We don’t blame Givenchy: by now, the Chuck Taylor’s been redesigned, remixed and relauched so many times, it’s lost every ounce of insurgent cred it had. It’s a shame because under the right circumstances, it’s still a pretty great shoe, but it’s losing ground with every outlandish designer collab.

So we’d like to offer the following Humble Suggestion: maybe give it a rest for a few years. Let the poor man catch his breath.

From across the room (or across the internet), they look like honest, god-fearing denim. But as soon as you see someone walk across the room in them—or worse, actually touch the things—you’ll notice the unmistakeable pillowy drape of your sartorial mortal enemy.

Sweatpants. We meet again.

Normally, we’d write it off as a harmless joke, but we can’t shake the possibility that someone will wear these and think they’re actually fooling someone. Have we learned nothing from jeggings?

We like patent loafers. We like espadrilles. But there is a larger issue at stake here, and we’re resisting the temptation to make it in all caps:

You can’t just mash together random shoes. Honestly.

We realize this is cheeky and deconstructivist and all those things, but there is no plausible reason for anyone to ever wear this shoe, other than to bask in the fact that they’re wearing something nonsensical. It’s even worse because jute soles are actually a cool thing if you’re dressing one notch above barefoot. But if you put a heel on them—or any material you don’t want to get sand on—they just look silly and pointless.